I should be usedto having a rabbit face and ears by now, but somehow, I’m not. Today is the first day of real work, where I will be training the client’s employees on implementing and utilizing the new software. Naturally, I’ve shifted three minutes before my presentation is supposed to start.
My hands grip the edges of the sink and I hear it creak under my weight. Letting go, I shake my head. I can’t wait any longer. Twitching bunny nose or not, I need to go.
As I walk back into the conference room where the first slide of my presentation is already projected on the screen at the front, I decide to make light of it. Filling my lungs and pasting a smile on my face, I walk in, and heads immediately turn in my direction.
I step to the front, then look around and my smile turns intentionally rueful as I circle a hand around the air in front of my face.
“I know. Ridiculous, right?” I force a chuckle and a couple people smile in response, while many shoulders relax. “It’s a new thing. Just ignore it, that’s what I do.”
With this, I wave my hand, gesturing toward the screen. “Shall we begin?”
Nods and shuffling follow as people pull out notepads or laptops, and I’m pleased to find I don’t hear one snicker or whisper from the group in front of me. I begin to relax as I start the first of many training presentations this week, and as I move to the second slide, my face tingles back to its incredibly normal, blissfully boring human shape.
Asher walksinto the hotel room later that afternoon to find me sprawled out on the bed with black cat ears (not the fake headband kind, unfortunately) and a black cat tail sticking out of my gym shorts, the end flicking back and forth.His face cycles through an amusing carousel of expressions in a matter of seconds. I’m pretty sure I catch shock, confusion, amusement, and what I think might be concern. I refuse to acknowledge my brain telling me that I also saw a flicker of interest in his eyes when we both realized I’m only wearing running shorts and a sports bra. I had been planning to go to the gym, until my black cat features made an abrupt appearance and I flopped onto the bed instead.
I sit up and watch as he slowly walks into the room and sets his leather bag down on the desk, then unbuttons the top of his shirt. My mind spins into overdrive, silently begging those fingers to keep going, and internally crying when they don’t. Instead, he practically stalks over to me, eyes narrowing as I straighten up in his presence.
“What?” I say, my voice wary as I lean slightly away from him.
He stops his advance and blinks, clearing some of the predatory aura he had going on, and while that does wonders for the tension in my shoulders, I’m mortified to feel my lower stomach and thighs unclench too.
It doesn’t mean anything.
“Let me help, sunshine,” he says, and I’m shocked to hear that he almost sounds… pleading.
“Please," he adds.
Past pleading then—begging.
I smother the smirk trying to break out on my lips, and pull up the rational part of my brain. Nothing I’ve done seems to have helped. If I’m being brutally honest with myself, I haven’t tried much to begin with. At this point, I doubt anything he has to teach me could make it worse, so I meet his eyes and nod my assent.
“Okay," I say.
“Yeah?” His eyes are wary, so I confirm again, a slight smile crooking the corners of mymouth.
“Yeah.”
Asher snags a throw blanket from his makeshift bed and snaps his wrists to spread it out across the floor. Then he grabs two pillows and sets them down, sitting on one and waving me over to sit on the other.
I curl my legs under me on the pillow, facing him with only a couple of feet between us. My breath catches at the detail I can see on his face, realizing I never paid much attention to these smaller parts of him before. The way his eyebrows have a natural arch, how thick and dark his lashes are. The streaks of silvery-blue and gray that crackle out from his pupil, creating a striking effect in his blue eyes.
“So I don’t suggest anything you’ve already tried, what has and hasn’t worked in the past?” he asks.
I shrug, and he quirks an eyebrow.
“I don’t know," I say. “I haven’t really tried anything.”
“What about in the bathroom?” He references the previous day when I was hiding, then yelled at him and slammed the door in his face. I flush at the memory.
“I mean, I tried to tell myself to shift back, but that didn’t work. Obviously," I grumble the last word as I pout at my lap.
“What else?”
I think back to all the times I’ve hidden in various bathrooms over the last few months.
“I guess… I’ve tried washing my face. Pacing, does that count?” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle, and he frowns.
“What about breathing?” he asks.
